FLINT, MICH. — The government looking at expanding a pioneering scheme in Flint, one of the poorest US cities, which involves razing entire districts and returning the land to nature. Local politicians believe the city must contract by as much as 40 per cent, concentrating the dwindling population and local services into a more viable area. The radical experiment is the brainchild of Dan Kildee, treasurer of Genesee County, which includes Flint. Having outlined his strategy to Barack Obama during the election campaign, Mr Kildee has now been approached by the US government and a group of charities who want him to apply what he has learnt to the rest of the country. Mr Kildee said he will concentrate on 50 cities, identified in a recent study by the Brookings Institution, an influential Washington think-tank, as potentially needing to shrink substantially to cope with their declining fortunes. Most are former industrial cities in the ‘rust belt’ of America’s Mid-West and North East. They include Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Memphis. In Detroit, shattered by the woes of the US car industry, there are already plans to split it into a collection of small urban […]
The world is on track to produce a new global climate treaty by December, the top United Nations climate official said Friday as delegates from more than 100 nations concluded 12 days of talks in Bonn, Germany. The delegates issued a 200-page document that they said would serve as the starting point for treaty negotiations that open in Copenhagen in December. ‘Time is short, but we still have enough time, the official, Yvo de Boer, who is the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said at a briefing. ‘I’m confident that governments can reach an agreement and want an agreement. The goal is a climate treaty that would go beyond the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, a climate-change agreement that set emissions targets for industrialized nations. Many of those goals have not been met, and the United States never ratified the accord. The document issued Friday outlines proposals for cutting emissions of heat-trapping gases by rich countries and limiting the growth of gases in the developing world. It also discusses ways of preventing deforestation, which is linked to global warming, and of providing financing for poorer nations to help them adapt to warmer […]
What Happened to Single Payer?, the Washington Independent asks in a recent article. One answer, the Independent suggests, comes from Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. John Conyers, authors of the single payer bills in the Senate, S 703, and House, HR 676: Both lawmakers argue that private insurers, who have a fiduciary duty to shareholders, are the wrong folks to dictate who receives what care when. ‘The function of a private health insurance company is not to provide health care; it is to deny health care,’ Sanders said last week. ‘Every dollar of premium that a health insurance company does not spend on health care needs is a dollar more in profits.’ If the policy provisions that seem to be deemed politically acceptable seem to be those that most accommodate the healthcare industry, perhaps it’s time, as the adage says, to follow the money. USA Today released data showing that the biggest drug and insurance giants have amped up their lobbying spending by 41 percent this year to make sure that reform gets done right — for them anyway. 20 of the […]
Back in April, there was a huge fuss over an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security warning that current conditions resemble those in the early 1990s - a time marked by an upsurge of right-wing extremism that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing. Conservatives were outraged. The chairman of the Republican National Committee denounced the report as an attempt to ‘segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration and label them as terrorists. But with the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic, closely followed by a shooting by a white supremacist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the analysis looks prescient. There is, however, one important thing that the D.H.S. report didn’t say: Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment. Now, for the most part, the likes of Fox News and the R.N.C. haven’t directly incited violence, despite Bill O’Reilly’s declarations that ‘some called Dr. Tiller ‘Tiller the Baby Killer, that he had ‘blood on his hands, and that he […]
Not only did Toyota’s redesigned Prius hybrid outsell Honda’s Insight hybrid in Japan last month, it was the best-selling vehicle in that nation. Priuspg-horizontal Toyota sold 10,915 Priuses in May in Japan, according to the Japan Automobile Dealers Association, vs. Honda’s 8,183 Insights. It was the second-consecutive month that a gasoline-electric hybrid was Japan’s top seller. In the U.S., where the new Prius is yet to hit showrooms, Toyota sold 10,091 of the familar version last month, and Honda sold 2,780 Insights. Neither was among the 20 top-selling cars in the U.S. market, according to sales tracker Autodata. In Japan, Toyota factories are working overtime to make more third-generation Priuses, Automotive News reports. Toyota is making 50,000 cars a month at two plants, a pace that’s 50% higher than Toyota’s sales target. Workers are drawing overtime at one plant making the car and workers are being recalled from furlough to make Priuses at others. Toyota has orders for about 140,000 Prisues in Japan, Automotive News said. In the U.S., Toyota still has no plans to restart building a plant near Tupelo, Miss., that was going to make the new Prius.
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
